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Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Living Church of God Can No Longer Outsource Its Phone Center, Now Expects Members To Answer Calls

Several LCG members contacted me about this.

As the Living Church of God continues to struggle administratively and financially it has to start cutting back on expenses. Jimmy Meredith can only redecorate so many offices and take so many all expenses paid trips to Hawaii till the money till starts going dry.

Imitating their mother church, the LCG is pulling the same trick that the Worldwide Church of God did decades ago when it had members dress up in Sabbath wear and answer phone calls in their homes. That experiment was a flop like so many others. It's the 21st century and they STILL can't come up with an original idea.

Jimmy Meredith writes:

In an effort to potentially save a substantial amount of this expense,
we are exploring the possibility of bringing our call center in-house.
However, for this to happen we will need your help! This is an
opportunity for Church members to let their lights shine and have a
direct “hands on” part in preaching the Gospel. In order for this to be
successful, we need many volunteers who are able to work from home and
are willing to assist with our peak-volume call-in periods at different
times throughout the week.

Then like any good COG leader, Jimmy declares that if the program fails its the fault of the membership. Its success depends entirely upon the membership. No one in Charlotte could ever be held accountable!

Well, telemarketing organizations in my area use "prisoners", (kind of like ACOG tithe slaves?), people who are incarcerated and on work-furlough, to staff their phone centers. Major corporations use call centers in India to support their products, and services. PBS uses volunteers. So, I have no doubt that church members could handle a few phone calls. Personally, I'd want them to sound like they didn't have a corncob up their butts, so I'd allow them to wear Levis, tanktops, and sandals so they could be comfortable, but that's just me.

Think of it as being Jehovah Witnesses on telephone as opposed to knocking on doors. Each of these "communicators" could be seen as conducting a personal ministry. Nah, on second thought, the ACOGs are against personal evangelism, and if LCG allowed it, they may be inadvertently grooming a bumper crop of ego-infested Bitter Bobs that will arise and afflict them in the future.

Bummer, dudes! This is another way you Armstrongites have pasted yourselves into a corner, and out of sync with the times!

Every change is touted as a move forward, an improvement, etc. Didn't the PT come out on newspaper print for a while? I don't recall how they positioned that. Perhaps they said that more people read newspapers than magazines. Whatever. It doesn't matter what explanation anyone gives to these members. God's leaders have made a decision so it has to be correct. Build a second and third campus . . . a move forward. Close one or two campuses, another move forward. Never admit to a mistake or a lack of progress. Say whatever you have to say; do whatever you have to do to keep the money coming in.

The purpose of the in-house call program is member retention. Give people an "important" job to do and they won't leave. Same purpose for the goto video, although it's not giving a job to the lay members its purpose is member retention, not outreach. That's why the various ministers aren't named in the video. They're already famous rock stars to the primary audience (existing lay members).

Likewise all the grandiose proclamations from Dave Pack and any othr COG leader are done for member retention, not growth.

That is the whole point - free labor. Years ago in WCG, the main room in the feast ad building in Big Sandy was lined with cubicles and phones manned by local members to take all the calls that came in after a telecast.